


How To Survive Winter

by Barkour



Category: How to Train Your Dragon (2010)
Genre: Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-07-02
Updated: 2012-07-02
Packaged: 2017-11-09 00:27:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,343
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/449206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Barkour/pseuds/Barkour
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Astrid shoulders her grief over her father's passing in her own way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How To Survive Winter

The ice came: a harsh and early winter. The elder still spoke now and then in those days, and she said the last she had seen such a winter she was a girl no older than the Hofferson's daughter, who was eleven. Then she made sign to Hel for Holgi Hofferson, dead on the ice. A branch had broken off a tree, laden with too much snow, and in falling the branch had struck him and cracked his neck. It was not a warrior's death. 

A terrible winter.

*

Snow again. Astrid woke, cold. The chill fingered beneath the furs layered criss-cross upon her. When had she crept into her mother's bed? She coiled into herself, tucking her knees to her chest. Then she straightened and rose.

The fire still burnt in the hearth. Her mother had left a note upon the table, pinned with a stone the size of a fist. Gone dragon patrol, it said. Chop wood. Remember eat. Her mother wrote with sharp, dark strokes. In places, she'd punched through the parchment. 

Astrid turned the parchment over, set the stone upon it, and crept back to dress in the cold and the dark.

*

She punched through the ice and into the snow, which rushed up to meet her knees. The ghost of her mother's powerful stride remained, a string of deep holes leading away from the house to the common way, where the snow was packed and slung low to the ground. Astrid checked her straps, adjusting the weight of the work ax across her back, and set off around the house.

The sun shone somewhere above the clouds. The snow gleamed like the white shell of the moon. Astrid stomped, shortening her steps to pock the clean blanket of snow with dark craters. The ice crunched. She stomped harder, smashing it beneath her boots. 

In the forest, something sang and was silenced.

Sweat beaded her forehead. The wood pile was a great, white lump at the back of the house. The snow thinned leading up to it, the fall blocked by the trees overhead and the bulk of the house. Now the drifts reached halfway up her calves, now just above her ankles. She kicked at the wood pile and missed, then kicked again, harder. The jolt rang to her thigh. Snow spattered. Her breath gusted out white and hot. 

Astrid wiped at her face, which hurt, half numb and half not. Chop wood. Her father wrote with soft strokes and blunted turns. 

She slung the ax off her shoulder and dragged a block of wood from the pile. She positioned it and steadied it with her foot, and brought the ax first high above her head, then sharp into the wood. One stroke, two strokes, three strokes. The wood groaned and split, cleaved in uneven halves. A knot ached between her shoulders. She jerked another block off the pile and set to work. The thud of each ax stroke resounded, muffled and yet clear. 

At her back, the forest was still.

*

She ate twice: jerkied meat and hard bread, with melted snow for drink. Night fell. From the sea, a cold wind blew, rattling against the small house with its thick walls. The shutters, drawn tight across the window casing, trembled. 

Astrid checked the bolts and banked the fire, drawing hot breath out of the blackened embers. A stray spark threw itself at her and fizzed out on wet wool, leaving ash on toe. 

She stripped out of her wet clothes and set them out near the fire to dry, and she dressed again in thick wool and fur. The sweater she dragged on over all this smelled faintly of smoke and summer fires. The sleeves hung far below her wrists. This was her father's. 

She yanked the sweater off over her head, threw it away into the shadows where the firelight dimmed, and crawled into her own bed, heaped with dark furs and cold with her absence. The furs smelled of Astrid and of winter sweat, dried. She burrowed into them, drew them over her head, pulled them tight about her.

Her mother returned. The wind blew in with her. Astrid breathed in and out. She fisted her hands in the furs.

"Astrid?" said her mother. She closed the door, grunting. The lock thunked into place. "Astrid, are you awake?"

Be quiet. Be still. 

"Astrid?" Her mother's footsteps sounded, heavy and steady as she crossed around the fire. Now she stood beside Astrid; now she crouched. Her mother set her hand on Astrid's shoulder. Astrid closed her eyes; they stung.

"You sleep well, girl," her mother whispered. She patted Astrid's shoulder, then she stood and crossed to the other bed, the one which was now just hers.

The bear fur beneath Astrid's cheek was rough, scratching on her skin. She turned her face to it and rubbed her eyes across the coarse hairs. Her shoulders shook and her chest ached, but she didn't cry.

*

She went down to the village proper for bread. "Clear out," her mother said, tutting. Like a nadder, her father would have said sweetly. "How we got through the loaf so quick."

So Astrid took a basket and four polished Zippleback scales for trading down to the baker's. If he'd any meat pies as he sometimes did, she might could talk him into a bargain. Astrid swung the basket in a lengthy arc with each wide step. The ax pulled on her shoulders. She hummed a little to herself. Can't carry a tune worth a lick, her mother said, but bless her trying. She hummed louder and stepped wider, smashing through the ice instead of crossing to the trail.

The baker had three meat pies and traded her two and three loaves besides. "Daughter's wedding a lad from Yuck, down south," he said. "Wants a dress of dragon scales! Says it's cultural. Where'm I getting a dress of dragon scales, I say."

"A dragon," said Astrid. 

The baker eyed her. "Here you go then," he said. 

She took the basket and slung it up over her elbow. The baker had turned to his ledger. He'd paper wrapped about the length of charcoal to keep his fingers clean.

"Thank you," she said. 

"Aye, get along," said the baker.

Astrid side-stepped Jorgenson's oldest boy, who came crashing through the door as he crashed through most everything. "Watch it, Snotlout," she snapped.

"You watch yourself!" he shouted back at her. He pinwheeled into the wall.

Astrid laughed and kicked the door shut behind her.

She trudged back out into the snow, ax sturdy at her back, the basket a weight dragging at her arm. The sun shone, a dull halo above the clouds. At the crossroads she turned away from home to walk along the winding path which looped in a vast and uneven circle about the village. The packed snow crunched beneath her boots, like bugs split beneath a block of wood. 

She rounded a sharp turn, necessitated by a jut of rock made sacred to Njörðr years before. Before her, a column of black smoke rose from the smithy's chimney. The Thorston twins loitered without, playing at tossing stones. They were older than her and meaner, given to cruel jokes. 

Astrid switched the basket from her right arm to her left, keeping it far from them. Tuffnut looked up. He grinned at her, then lowered his head to whisper to Ruffnut. Ruffnut pushed him away, then leaned close again, their long pale hair mingling like straw. Astrid hooked her arm up, pinning the basket at her elbow, but kept her course.

"I heard he was drunk," Tuffnut whispered loudly. He grinned, still. 

Ruffnut sniggered and jostled him. "Poor little Astrid," she said. "I bet she misses her daddy."

"Her dead, drunk daddy," said Tuffnut.

Astrid turned sharply. She shed the basket and slung the ax off her shoulder and threw that down by the basket, amidst the bread and the meat pies now cooling in the snow.

"Oh, no, I think she's mad," Ruffnut pouted, then Astrid grabbed her by the hair and punched Tuffnut in the nose. Blood sprayed red on her fist. Tuffnut screamed and fell back, clutching at his face.

"Let go!" Ruffnut said. "It was just a joke!"

"Shut up," said Astrid. "Shut up!"

She kicked Ruffnut twice and grabbed for Tuffnut, who hadn't brains enough to stand up and run. Or maybe he refused to leave his sister. That was bravery of a sort. Astrid punched him again, missing his nose and catching his eye.

"Stop! Stop!" he wailed. "You're killing me!"

"Stop crying, you coward!" Astrid shouted, boxing his ear.

"Leave him alone!" Ruffnut snarled. "Nobody hurts Tuffnut but me!" 

She lashed out, driving her fist into Astrid's back. Astrid stumbled and whirled on her, cracking her hard across the jaw. Tuffnut reared up out of the snow, blood red on his face, and threw his arms around Astrid, not stopping but slowing her. Astrid screamed her rage in Ruffnut's face and kicked back, hoping she'd snap Tuffnut's knee, wanting them both to just shut up.

"What in the hells is all this!" a man boomed behind her, his voice like thunder pealing. 

Then Tuffnut let her go; he was crying to his father as Ruffnut sneered at Astrid.

"She attacked us," Tuffnut said. "We didn't do anything and she just went berserk!" said Ruffnut.

Blood on her fist, blood on her mouth: Tuffnut's blood, Ruffnut's blood. Astrid stared up at Ofeigr Thorston, ninth below Stoick and third above Hekja, her own mother. Her face was hot, her chest wound so tight. She wished he were dead. She wished he were _dead_.

Mind that temper, girl, her father had said.

"You picking on my children?" said Ofeigr, in his heaving rumble. "What right you--"

"Not exactly," said Gobber, the smith. He leaned out the window, his bulk near to filling the frame. "Far be it from me to question the truthfulness of your children, but methinks there was a wee bit of provocation. You might want to ask where they're picking up such things as they're saying. Your sword's all done," he added. 

He leaned back and tossed it through. Ofeigr caught it one-handed. 

"I'll take care of little Astrid," said Gobber. He pointed to Tuffnut. "Might want to get your boy's nose looked at. Gushing like a spring, it is."

Tuffnut touched his nose and winced. "Idiot," Ruffnut muttered to him. Tuffnut elbowed her and she hip-checked him, throwing him off balance. Ofeigr caught them both by the nape, forcing them still. 

"I best not see you around my kids again," said Ofeigr to Astrid. She looked away. "You two, with me." He dragged the twins along. Both shot Astrid mocking looks.

Astrid clenched her fists and unclenched them, hearing the smack of her fist on Tuffnut's cheek, the give of Ruffnut's gut beneath her toe. Their father towered like a mountain between them.

"Now, Astrid," said Gobber, "you know it's useless fighting with those two. Doesn't matter how much you knock 'em around, you'll never beat sense into their thick heads."

She looked up. He smiled at her, his silver tooth flashing in the grey winter light. Her eyes burnt suddenly, as if she might cry. A movement, beside him: Hiccup, peering around Gobber at her. Astrid straightened.

"Are you okay?" Hiccup said, stuttering only once. He touched the corner of his mouth. "You're bleeding."

"I'm fine," she said. She swiped her hand across her mouth. Blood streaked along the back of her hand. "It's just a little blood."

"Do you want to come inside for a bit?" said Gobber, with a look back at Hiccup, who had turned to root through the things scattered across a workbench. "I can promise you there's no stronger fire in all of Berk."

Shame hit her suddenly, like a cold wind striking, and rekindled the anger. Gobber looked kindly down on her.

"No," she said. "I have to get home." She turned. Her ax gleamed, half-hidden in the bank of snow.

"Astrid!"

Hiccup touched her shoulder, then flinched away.

"What?" she snapped. 

Small, weak Hiccup with his soft, sad eyes and his pale face. He'd soot in his hair.

"Um," he said. He thrust a clean cloth at her. "Take this. For your. Um. For your." He dropped his eyes. He fluttered his fingers around his mouth.

Astrid licked her lips. The cold air bit at her mouth. "I don't need it," she said, and she left him there in his too-large leather apron, holding the cloth out to her as if offering peace.

She rounded a corner and remembered the meat pies, spilled out of the basket. She hesitated, then she thought of Hiccup standing there, and she bent her head and walked on.

*

During the funerary ceremonies her mother had stood tall and straight, her thick shoulders rigid. Astrid stood still beside her and stared forward as her mother stared forward, unflinching and without expression. She did not cry. Astrid did not cry. 

She stood there and watched the flames eat her father's body to ash, and after, she had gone home with her mother and then to bed. They did not speak. If they had, it wouldn't have mattered. A storm came from the north, and the winds deafened. 

Astrid had lain awake in her bed, counting shadows on the wall, listening to winter screaming through the trees. After a time, she slept.

*

Another lull visited Berk, a moment of solace amidst the winter storms. A corner of the thatched roof had caved in, leaking ice and dripping snow into the loft. Other needs made themselves known: a rusted hinge on a shutter, a bolt which wouldn't stay, a rat which had died in the chimney. 

Hekja took the ladder out to tend the roof. Astrid stayed to pick the rat out of the chimney. Burnt and then frozen, it stank. She hid her mouth in her sleeve and pinched her nose. She drew it out, speared on the end of her dagger. Its paws had tightened into an awful rictus, as if even in death it felt pain. The eyes glimmered like glass. Astrid pitched the tiny corpse into the woods. 

In the early afternoon her mother tromped inside again, her face ruddy, chapped with the cold and bright with exercise. "Roof's all done," she said. "Fixed up another corner looked weak. Should hold us through. You get the rat out?"

Astrid nodded and swallowed her mouthful of cheese. "I threw it in the woods," she said. "The wolves can have it."

"No wolves left," said her mother. "Dragons took 'em all. Any cheese? Fresh out?"

Astrid shook her head and gestured.

Her mother checked. "Not much. We'll restock tomorrow if the weather holds."

She hadn't been to the village since the fight with the twins. Astrid finished her bread and cheese and said, "All right. I'll go."

Her mother patted her shoulder once, twice. "Good girl." She bustled out and up to the loft to clear out the snow that had piled beneath the roof. Quiet flooded the house. 

The stink of the dead rat lingered in Astrid's nose. She went to straighten the furs scattered across her bed. The smell followed. She tossed the furs one atop the other, bear over wolf over the sealskin which had been her father's gift to her on her tenth birthday. She smoothed her hand down the skin. Stillness fell on her like a weight.

Above, her mother's footsteps sounded, even and unbothered. 

Astrid stood. Shrugging into her overcoat, she grabbed her ax. "I'm getting more firewood," she called up the stairs. She didn't wait for her mother. The door slammed behind her. She walked away from the woodpile and into the forest.

*

Winter brought silence to the woods. Snow weighted the trees down; long spears of ice hung from thick branches. She walked on. Her breath washed white before her and her feet made jagged holes in the ice. Once, she surprised a rabbit foraging. It bounded off into the brush, leaving delicate fans where it stepped in the snow. In its wake tiny icicles sang against each other like bells, rung.

She bent to root out a stone. The rock was heavy in her gloved hand. She tossed it lightly up, then drew her arm back and snapped the stone forward. It smashed into a far branch and fell down into the snow. Three icicles as fat around as her wrist followed it. She dug for another stone and tossed that one, too. Another shower of icicles stabbed down to frozen earth. A distant crack sounded through the trees. A branch, falling.

Astrid stood there, listening. Then she moved on.

A small clearing opened to her. She shouldered her ax off, catching the shaft in her hand. The snow rose near to her knees. She tipped her head back to the sky, overcast and pale. The tops of the trees stirred, heavy though their burden of snow, brushed by a wind she didn't feel. 

Astrid turned the ax over in her hand, spinning the shaft along her palm. Then she hefted it and threw it. It struck the tree and fell. A shower of snow drifted from the near branches. She crossed to the tree and knelt to pick up her ax. A shallow notch showed pale in the tree bark. 

Walking back through her tracks to her throwing position, she flipped the ax over again and again, measuring the weight of it. This time. This time she'd stick it. She turned on her heel. Raising the ax high and back, she whipped it forward again. The head skimmed the side of the tree, shearing off bark, but falling again to the snow. 

Astrid snarled through her teeth and stalked forward to fetch it. She knew she could do this; she'd watched her mother do it, her father. She fumbled in the snow for the handle. She stood, and she saw Hiccup between the trees, his reddish hair a flag against the snow, his head turned down. He'd strange bowed things strapped to his feet, like flippers on a seal.

"Hiccup?" she said.

He startled. She thought he might fall over, but he caught a low-hanging branch. His eyes were huge. He reddened.

"Astrid," he said. He squeaked. "Why are you--I was just. I'm." He hunched his shoulders. In his sleek coat and silly shoes, he looked even more the seal.

"What are you doing out here?" she said.

His face smoothed. He looked to his feet again. "Getting out of the way."

"What's that on your feet?" She pointed with her ax. 

"What? Oh." 

He lifted one foot high so she could see. The snow didn't come quite so high up his legs as it did up hers, but she knew she was taller than him. She slogged closer.

"It's a snowshoe," he said. His leg wobbled. He caught his knee, holding his foot out. Astrid frowned at it. She peeked up at him. He looked pleased, red-faced but smiling. "They keep you from sinking into the snow. Well, they're supposed to, but this is just a prototype." He dropped his leg.

"What are you doing out here?" he said. "A-Astrid."

"Practicing," she said. She thumped the ax against her thigh.

"Oh," he said. "Sure. Of course. Don't want to waste a day like this." He aimed for a light note and missed.

Astrid nodded and turned to trudge back to her clearing.

"About the other day!"

She looked over her shoulder. Hiccup had his hand stretched out to her. His fingers curled. He withdrew. 

"They shouldn't have said those things," he said.

"No," she said, "they should have kept their fat mouths shut."

Hiccup winced. She waited a moment and then she turned around again.

"My, um. My mom died," he called and she stopped again. She looked at him. Hiccup stared at his feet with their clumsy flippers. His ears were pink with cold. He'd forgotten a hat.

Everyone knew his mother was dead. They had a song for her, Valhallarama who had slain more dragons and quested farther than any Viking before her, brave Valhallarama who had died in search of the dragons' nest and left their son to Stoick. How could the child of two such warriors grow to be Hiccup, Holgi Hofferson had wondered.

"I don't really remember her," Hiccup said to his feet. "I was still little. My dad says I cried." He shrugged. "I've tried to remember her, any way I could. I memorized that entire song. But the only thing I think I remember is the way she smelled. Like the ocean and roasted meat."

Astrid knotted her fingers. "Why are you telling me this?"

"I don't know," he said. "I thought it might help."

He wouldn't even look at her.

"Well, it doesn't," she said.

She crashed through the clearing and back into the trees, on and on until she came out onto the rocks a short distance from her house.

Astrid kicked the door open and threw her ax down, scattering snow in a wide circle about it. Her mother rose from a chair at the window. The shutters were thrown wide. Through the frame, the trees showed, dark and laid over with white.

Her mother's face tightened, then cleared. "There you are!" she said. "Brought snow into our nice, dry house." She stood before Astrid, fiddling with Astrid's coat. "You're soaked. Get this thing by the fire. No more outings today."

Her mother slipped with the buttons, her fingers clumsy at Astrid's collar. Astrid looked up into her mother's eyes. Hekja looked away.

"I'll get you warm milk," she said. "Not much. We'll get more tomorrow."

Astrid stripped her gloves off, the thick, padded leather ones and the soft wool gloves beneath. Her mother bent over the fire, pot in hand. Her stout shoulders bowed. Her mother wore boots and a coat, as if to go out. 

Astrid dropped her coat over her ax. She thought of Hiccup, who had cried when his mother died, and of her mother, who had stared forward, dry-eyed, as her husband burned. A chill breeze whispered through the open window. Snow, melted, formed a puddle on the sill.

"Close that thing," said her mother.

Then Astrid was at her back. She wrapped her arms about her mother's waist and buried her face in her mother's coat. Her eyes ached; her throat stung. She hooked her fingers in her coat and pressed close.

Her mother was soft against her. Astrid took one deep, shaking breath and let it out. 

"There, girl," said her mother. Her voice was thick. "That's enough now. Go get the window."

Astrid stepped back, wiping at her eyes. They were dry, but hurt as if with smoke. She went to the window. The trees winked at her, glittering with ice. 

"I forgot the wood," she said as she drew the shutters closed.

"That's all right," said her mother. "I brought more in. Now sit you at the table. I'll get you your dinner."

*

Night settled. The winds fell silent. The fire crackled and sighed and otherwise said nothing. Astrid counted shadows on the wall, then she rose, taking the sealskin with her and three other furs. 

Her mother did not move when Astrid slipped beneath the furs. She was thick and warm, rising like a cliff on her side, and Astrid cuddled close to her, pressing her cheek to her mother's back.

"Cold over there, is it?" said her mother.

"Yes," said Astrid.

*

Morning broke dark and cold. A harsh wind stirred the harbor. 

"Storm by evening," said her mother. "We'll be quick. Get your boots."

They carried baskets down to the village, Astrid the two small ones, her mother the great one strapped to her back. Astrid walked with large steps, following in her mother's tracks.

"Hiccup made snowshoes," Astrid said, remembering. 

"Did he now," said her mother.

"To walk on the snow," said Astrid.

"Does he?"

"No," said Astrid, thinking of the snow white at his calves, but not at his knees.

At the juncture her mother handed her a purse heavy with small scales. "I'll see if they've any fish," she said. "Go to the Cotters' when you're done."

Her mother had near rounded the steps leading down to the docks when Astrid leaned out over them and said, "Be careful."

Hekja smiled up at her. Her square face softened. "Aye," she said. "And you." Then she passed out of view.

Astrid hoisted her baskets and set off for the baker's, then the butcher's beside the baker's. The lines were thick, the shops filled with those restocking for the next winter gale to come off the seas. From the baker's to the butcher's, then up to Olaffsdottir's to barter for milk and cheese.

Thick smoke showed the smithy. Hiccup stood outside, emptying a pot of smithing refuse into the run-off channel cut into the snow. His nose was wrinkled, his eyes squeezed tight. He hadn't seen her.

The baskets pulled on her shoulders, laden with hogget and bread and four day-old pies the baker had traded at half. She hoisted them higher up her arms and set her jaw. Then she crossed to stand beside him. 

"Smoke," she said.

Hiccup jumped, dropping the pot. It rolled up against his foot.

"My dad smelled like smoke," she said, "and lamp oil. He was on the lighting crew. That's why he smelled like smoke. I didn't cry," she said.

He fidgeted with his fingers. "That's okay," he said.

She lifted her chin. "I don't need your approval."

"You don't," he said.

She waited. 

"I'm sorry," he said.

Her elbow had numbed. Her ears were cold even beneath her hat. 

"Me, too," she said.

She turned.

"Be careful," he called after her.

Astrid looked over her shoulder at Hiccup, small and thin and pale. 

"You be careful, too," she said.

She turned the corner.


End file.
